Secrets of professional housekeepers: how to clean the sofa from stains without streaks
Home sofa has seen everything in his life. But if stains and dirt appear on it, then this life can become short-lived - who likes to sit on a greasy sofa with stains of unknown origin? To make the sofa last a long time and delight the eye with freshness and cleanliness, the homemaster.techinfolux.com/en/ editors have prepared an article on what types of stains are and how to remove them from different furniture upholstery.
The content of the article
How to clean the sofa from stains and streaks
Before running for household chemicals or using grandma's by proven means, you should understand the nuances:
- the type of upholstery plays a primary role in cleaning methods;
- the nature of the spot: not everyone remembers the course of school chemistry, although he would be very helpful in this. Therefore, you have to rely on the advice of experienced people.
If the furniture is upholstered in suede, leather or leatherette, then folk remedies are handled carefully. The silk sofa does not tolerate acids and alkalis. Velvet or velor furniture will lose its luster if rubbed with a brush. They will be offended by the flock and chenille brushing. Tapestry and velvet should not be overly moisturized, so if the recipe calls for vigorous wetting and application of a cleaning product that will need to be rinsed off, you may want to look elsewhere.
Important! If you want to use a previously untested product, it is applied on an inconspicuous area.
If the product is applied on an inconspicuous place, you should wait until it dries, after a while, check whether the color and structure are preserved, whether the pile is crumbling.It can get stiffer, so you need to rub the upholstery lightly with a soft brush. The pile has not softened? The product is not suitable!
Folk remedies for cleaning the sofa
Before using the cleaning agent, throw a damp, well-wrung sheet on the sofa and begin to knock out the furniture with a stick or hands. All dust settles on the fabric, if it is obvious that there is a lot of it, the sheet is washed and repeated. Once it is clean, various cleansing preparations can be used.
Proven folk remedies include vinegar, ammonia, and baking soda. This is a good tool, so it's worth figuring out how to clean sofa soda and vinegar. A working solution is prepared by adding 9% vinegar and ammonia to warm water in a ratio of 20: 1: 1.
Particularly dirty areas are cleaned with a soft-bristled brush. The applied product is removed with water.
How to wash a sofa from household chemicals
We figure out how to clean a dirty sofa with household chemicals. The mild method involves dissolving 4 tbsp in 3 liters of water. dishwashing detergents or regular liquid soap. Half a glass of 9% vinegar is added to the solution, and everything is whipped into a foam.
The foam should remain on the surface for 30 minutes. Then its remains are removed with a brush. After half an hour, the upholstery usually dries out.
There are many tools like Vanish for carpet cleaning... You should carefully study the composition: if Vanish contains bleaching particles, then many analogs in the composition only have optical brighteners: the furniture will not become lighter and cleaner, but will only seem so when illuminated.
Vanish is mixed with water in a 1: 9 ratio, whipped into foam and applied to the upholstery for 15 minutes. The remaining foam is removed with a sponge.
Another cleansing method involves the use of delicate laundry detergent and warm water. Half a glass of powder and a glass of water is enough to form working foam. It is ideal to remove the foam with a weak vacuum cleaner.
Using a vacuum cleaner or steam generator
If there is a nozzle for furniture, then the vacuum cleaner will perfectly cope with dust - the nozzle is passed over the upholstery, without missing a millimeter or joints. If it is absent, then vacuum clean only with a hose, since the brush will not be able to clean hard-to-reach places.
The steam cleaner does its job perfectly: they just need to walk on the furniture surface to remove dirt, stains, mites and germs.
Related article:
How to choose a washing vacuum cleaner. General parameters, useful information about nozzles, operating features, market overview, expert recommendations.
How to clean stains and streaks from a textile sofa
Textile upholstery can behave differently with detergent: the fabric can change color and discoloration. It is best to try applying the product at the bottom of the back of the sofa. Even if you want to remove stains from the sofa, the furniture should not be wetted too much, as the filler may deteriorate. Mites and microbes will feel great in a damp filler, and soon mold with a corresponding aroma will settle on the upholstery.
Flock and velor
Flock does not tolerate alcohol, solvents, washing powder, aggressive cleaning agents and oil products, but it can be perfectly cleaned with a sponge, soft brush and alcohol-free wet wipes.
How to clean a velor sofa at home? Prepare such a solution: 1 liter of water, 1 tsp. vinegar, 2 tsp. table salt. In this, a sponge is moistened and then squeezed out. The upholstery is cleaned strictly in the direction of the pile and does not rub much.Periodically, the sponge is rinsed in a solution and squeezed well.
Plush and Velvet
If the fabric has pile, scraping off the hardened dirt will damage the material. All tough dirt must first be soaked with soapy water. It is not recommended to wet plush and velvet, so dirt is removed only with foam in the direction of the pile.
Microfiber and Tapestry
Tapestry is cleaned with a sponge, vacuum cleaner, soft cloth using a soap or alcohol solution. You can perfectly remove dirt with a weak vinegar or ammonia solution.
Microfiber upholstery (microfiber) can be renewed with a vacuum cleaner, clothes brush, sponge and soft cloth. Solvents, products containing chlorine and undiluted acids are not suitable for this work. The microfiber sofa is clean of soapy water, alcohol, mild vinegar and ammonia, and water-based alkaline detergents.
How to clean a leather sofa
A leather sofa in the presence of animals or small children is an insanely expensive pleasure. Especially if the skin is light, and children grow up as artists.
You don't have to use petroleum jelly, baby oil will also deal with dirt. To prevent the sofa from looking greasy, it is wiped with a dry napkin.
How to clean wooden sofa armrests at home
The armrests can get dirty in the gum - in this case, rub in petroleum jelly, and then wipe the place from the gum with a cloth with polish. Vaseline will also cope with stains from glasses: it is left on the armrests for 3-5 hours.
Related article:
How to remove scratches from furniture. An overview of special industrial products and an algorithm for their use, the use of folk methods of dealing with scratches (walnuts, oil and other improvised means), restoration of the appearance of products made of glass and other materials.
How to remove certain types of stains from the sofa
Stains can even turn royal furniture into something untidy and unpresentable. The golden rule of a clean house is that any stain is removed immediately after it appears. But the rules can be violated for various reasons, and the stain remains as a reminder of the event. Let's not leave this as memorable marks and figure out how to clean the sofa from stains.
The end result after the stain removal procedure directly depends on how long ago the furniture was bought: if the sofa is old and very dusty, then a dirty edge will remain around the former stain. If the furniture is relatively new, then this defect can be avoided. An important tip to keep in mind is that you first need to get rid of the dust with a damp sheet and knock out the furniture before rushing into the stains.
How to remove coffee and tea stains from your sofa
How to wash the sofa from tea and coffee stains: moisten the stained place with water and rub it with laundry soap. After that, the material must be wiped with a soft brush and washed off with soap. You can dry the upholstery with a towel.
You can apply vinegar mixed with ammonia to the dirt with a cotton pad. Once everything is dry, the fabric is washed with water.
Wine, juices and beer
In case of beer stains, it's a good idea to have a soap root at home: 0.5 tsp. the substances are added to 1 liter of water and boiled for an hour. The strained broth perfectly kills both the smell and the color after beer.
In the absence of a soap root, use laundry soap, and then get rid of the stain with a weak vinegar solution. Red wine stains are easier to remove by blotting immediately with tissue paper and sprinkling with salt. Once the salt has absorbed moisture, the steps are repeated.
The salt is shaken off with a brush, and the trace is washed with alcohol and soap suds. The foam is collected with a napkin.
Fat and chocolate
Children ate on the couch, and now they need to know how to remove a greasy or chocolate stain from the upholstery? Let's explore. Fat is well neutralized with powdered chalk: it absorbs it, and all that remains is to brush away the dirt with a brush. The procedure is repeated until the speck disappears.
Talc is a good remedy. It is left on the dirt for up to 3-4 hours. Talc can be replaced with soda or starch. Then the powder is simply removed with a vacuum cleaner. If a trace still remains, it is removed with dishwashing liquid and water.
It is better not to touch the liquid speck - the chocolate should be frozen. To do this, put ice cubes in a bag and apply on a chocolate place for 10 minutes. Dried or frozen chocolate can even be scraped off with an ATM card.
Blot any chocolate marks with a white towel.
Ink and greenery
And how to clean the sofa from ink or green stains? The ink cannot be rubbed - a tiny speck will creep in all directions. This type of contamination needs to be absorbed into the tissue if the ink is fresh. You can use a mixture of milk and cornstarch. The gruel will absorb all the remnants of the substance, and you only need to remove the milk marks with a damp cloth.
Zelenka is removed with carpet cleaners. If a speck is on leatherette, it is wiped off with alcohol and hydrogen peroxide. Very light furniture can be cleaned of greenery with White Spirit.
A good way is to apply starch paste, which is removed immediately after drying.
Blood and urine
Smell and urine stain can be removed with a paper towel (do not smear, but soak!). After that, the soiled place is cleaned with a vinegar solution. You can also use this composition for a light sofa: hydrogen peroxide, water and a little shampoo.
Watercolor, gouache, oil paints
Cleaning the sofa from paint stains at home is based on laundry soap or Vanish. Watercolors are washed off immediately, as it is a difficult to remove substance.
Gouache is washed off with warm water (not hot!) And soap, and dry paint must first be scraped off. Acetone and alcohol can be used.
Chewing gum
Chewing gum is treated like chocolate: the dirt is frozen with ice and is easily scraped off. The speck is wiped with methyl alcohol until dry. If you cannot remove stains from the sofa without streaks on your own, you should contact the professionals.
Related article:
How to wash a streak-free mirror in different ways: with water, various folk remedies, household chemicals, an antistatic napkin, how to remove limescale and traces of stickers and markers - read the publication.